New National Livestock Transformation Plan to Run for 19 years, Says Osinbajo

NIGERIA’s Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, has said the newly inaugurated National Livestock Transformation Plan at the Gongoshi Grazing Reserve in Mayo-Belwa Local Government Area of Adamawa will run from 2019-2028.

He disclosed that the plan is designed as part of the Federal Government’s initiative in collaboration with States under the auspices of the National Economic Council.

While inaugurating the project on Tuesday, he said the plan, targeted at supporting the development of Nigeria’s livestock sector, is to be implemented in seven pilot states of Adamawa, Benue, Kaduna, Plateau, Nasarawa, Taraba and Zamfara.

He explained that the plan will be implemented as a collaboration project between the Federal and State governments, farmers, pastoralists and private investors.

“In this plan, the State Government or private investors provide the land, the federal government does not and will not take any land from a State or local government.

“Any participating state will provide the land and its own contribution to the project. The federal government merely supports.

“It is a plan that hopes to birth tailor-made ranches where cattle are bred, and meat and dairy products are produced using modern livestock breeding and dairy methods.

“This solves the problem of cattle grazing into and destroying farmlands. It ensures a practical response to the pressures on water and pasture by forces of climate change,” Osinbajo said.

In his explanations, he noted that the plan was designed to provide modern meat and dairy industry and in some cases integrated crop farming.

According to Osinbajo, the unique feature of the plan is that any participating state will determine its own model.

“I wish to emphasise that this is not RUGA because the idea of RUGA settlements launched by the Ministry of Agriculture created a problem when it was perceived as a plan to seize lands to create settlements for herders.

“RUGA was not the plan designed and approved by the governors and the President rightly suspended the implementation,” Osinbajo said.